Satori, Atma-Vyapti and Shiv-Vyapti - Part-1 (Seven levels of Turya)

(Please note that this chapter is uploaded only for those friends who had experiences of Turya. But, YOU the reader, if you have no experience of Turya and if you read this chapter, it will not make sense! On the contrary, it can create misunderstanding due to the words used... as intellect can misunderstand these words! So, be careful while reading this and don’t jump to conclusions! If you do not understand, please ask. I am available. Shivoham, Prem)

Namaste!

The topic of the evening is Satori, Atma Vyapti and Shiv Vyapti. In the first part we will discuss seven levels of turya. But, before that let me talk about the background as to why this program was announced. In the last couple of years because of this wonderful combination of kriya yoga and Kashmir Shaivism so many people in TAO had life transforming experiences. Many of you had these experiences during karmakshalan camp, almost everybody had these experiences in Awareness Development Program and everybody had these experiences in the Tripura Rahasya Camp, seven days long residential camp. Many people discussed those experiences with me, lot of feedback arrived and we have thick file, which is a compilations of all these experiences.

For a seeker any experience of this kind gives a good jolt to the system. It’s a big shock to the mind, so you enjoy. Because the entire science of Atma Vyapti and Shiv Vyapti is unknown to the seeker in the beginning you do not know what kind of experience that was. Any life transforming experience for that matter is a fantastic event in your being and you can’t describe such experiences in words. If you try to describe in words, you will find that whatever you talk is nowhere near to your experience, so you fail to describe. That is the reason we don’t know what that experience was, where we stand on the path, whether that is the final experience or there is something more than that, all this confusion starts.

Prior to any life transforming experience you have no confusions because ignorance is bliss. At the most you have some concepts, some imagination of life transforming experience like Satori or Atma Vyapti. Enlightenment, Self Realization, all these are words and concepts for you in the beginning and you are happy because you know them intellectually, you have read and you have heard but you did not have it in your own consciousness so there is no confusion. Real confusion begins when you actually have the experiences and then you wonder what that experience was. Any life transforming experience is a big event, how to understand what that was? This is the background.

In last 14 years of TAO more than 100 people had enlightenment experience right here. Right from my first or second workshop people started having these experiences, so many of them. So I thought that time has now come to discuss in a very systematic manner what are the different kinds of experiences you can have when you do sadhana in a very sincere manner. Our methodology of kriya yoga and Kashmir Shaivism is really producing results. Initially when we were talking about “Buddhas by batches” all of used to laugh! But today Buddhas by batches is a reality. In every batch, many participants get enlightenment experiences. It has already become a reality and it is not a laughing matter. It is a matter to celebrate, to rejoice! This happened in the times of Buddha also, 2500 years back. When so many people around Buddha started getting enlightened other people who had no idea of spiritual experiences they were wondering and many people started criticizing Buddha that may be your Bhikhus are hallucinating, how can these many people get enlightened. Buddha’s answer to that in Pali was ‘Ihi Pasiko’. ‘Ihi Pasiko’ means you come and see. You look into the eyes of those disciples and see, they also attained to Buddhahood. My answer also to all those people who are wondering is the same ‘Ihi Pasiko’. Come and see so many Enlightened Beings are there. It is an amazing happening on this Planet Earth.

But my friends here we must understand what different kinds of experiences are there and what kind of experience you had so that you understand and don’t get stuck there. Because the life transformation is such a big jolt, you may stay into that for a very long time and you may not walk further. You may not actualize your fullest potential and this can happen and it is happening to many and that is the reason we announced this evening program for all our budding Buddhas so that you do not get stuck with that one experience. There is a long way to go. It’s an eternal journey and there is nothing like final experience. Of course there is a kind of finality in spirituality but as far as the journey is concerned it is an eternal journey. Nobody should get stuck at any particular experience and that is the reason we need to discuss.

As we discuss various aspects you start pondering in your own being and you will understand what happened to you and you will understand that quite a few things happened to you. My methodology of guiding people systematically to enlightenment is now so perfected that many of you will realize that you had series of experiences. As we discuss, you start meditating, you start pondering, and you start relating to the words that I speak. To all my friends where these experiences happened, you will understand and those who did not have any experience will not understand abc… of what I am talking, so please excuse me. There are quite a few new people here. But we wanted this program to happen before Dwarahat Shibir. In this shibir we will go to very high level peaks in our journey and if you are not well versed with the basics you may not feel comfortable in Dwarahat Shibir. That is why all those people who are coming to Mahavatar Babaji’s cave on 2nd October 2010 I wanted all of them to attend this program because this program will prepare you for something which is much higher. There is no end to this journey. How far we can go? It’s an infinite journey. This evening program will also prepare you for Dwarahat Shibir.

Now let’s start with the first experience that everybody gets, when I say everybody it means even those who are not on the path, they also get. Only thing is that it is unknown to the world that it is also Samadhi but it is not called Samadhi, it is called Satori. All of us, everybody gets Satori experience under certain conditions. What are these conditions? We have many friends who go for trekking regularly. For example you prepare yourself and you start trekking and you go uphill. It is a difficult task and you manage to trek for four to five hours continuously at a stretch and when you come across a difficult terrain, your attention also is very high, you are very vigilant because if your feet slip you may go down in the valley or river. So your attention goes very high when you are trekking and you are not worried about what is there in the future, you have to see your next step.

This time we went to kedartal, we used to just see the next step, forgetting where we had to go. Every step we had to be vigilant because if your next step you do not put properly you will go into Ganges. So trekking automatically increases your awareness of the moment. It is a must and it is an uphill task when you go up in the mountains. After five to six hours when you reach the peak of the mountain suddenly you will see that panoramic view and you will get that ’aha’ feeling. In that feeling there is an experience. That experience is called satori. It stays for few seconds only, five to ten seconds and it is lost and then you are back to normal.

Same Satori experience can happen when you are very hungry. When you get a good meal and if the food is tasty you really feel contented and at the end of it at one particular point you have that ‘aha’ feeling. It is as if you got bliss on your full body. Those who are food lovers they get it. That is Satori experience. You just be with the nature, meditate, suddenly you come to that euphoric feeling, you get satori experience. If you love beauty and if you capture a good scene; even photography can give you Satori experience. If you are a meditator and a photographer you can get Satori experience while doing photography. If you look into the innocent eyes of a child and you get absorbed into the scene, ‘aha’, that is Satori experience. You look at a beautiful face and you get that ‘aha’ feeling, that is satori experience, all that gives you the glimpse where objectivity is lost because you are fully absorbed into that scene is Satori experience, but this happens unknowingly. You are not fully aware of your subjectivity; only objectivity is lost because you are absorbed into the scene. That is why these experiences do not become life transforming experiences. They are just like touch and go. You get something that is why these trekkers they go repeatedly, they don’t know what they get. But they get the Satori experience that is why they are attracted to repeatedly go for trek. For those five to ten seconds you work so hard. But that is the beauty.

But these experiences do not stay with you for long, they are fleeting moments, they are for few seconds at the most. You go to the same place again; you may or may not get these experiences. You had a wonderful experience once and you take your friends and you want to go to same place again. You may not get the same experience because it does not create the satori experience the second time. First time everything is unknown so you are enjoying. Second time it is known so you relate to the scene from the memory and that does not give you satori experience. It means that it is not meditative awareness.

Here we are not discussing Satori experiences as spiritual experiences because technically Satori experience is a glimpse of Samadhi. It is like an early level of Samadhi where the mind stops for few seconds naturally because of that ‘aha’ feeling. But nevertheless according to the definition, it is the glimpse of Samadhi and is called as Satori. Many people who attend Vipasana Program, they keep watching their breath for 10 days and at one moment they have that ‘aha’ feeling. You experience something and that is no-mind, which is Satori experience. So meditators also get Satori experience. But we need to understand what a full fledged spiritual experience is. Satori is just a glimpse it is not a full fledged life transforming experience. All those who had Satori experience, you will not see them transforming. You will have just a happy memory of that trek, or that beauty or that photograph. You want to relive that moment by seeing that photograph again. You get that joy but when you see it repeatedly even that joy is lost. Those who have too many photographs of too many treks they don’t even bother to see. What is there to see? This is because the same thing does not give joy second time. That is why Satori experiences are not lasting experiences and they cannot be labeled as Self Realization or Enlightenment experience. That is something different. So let’s move further.

The real experience happens when you capture the junction point, after you sleep when the dream state starts. When you sleep, your wakefulness goes away; you get in the hynogogic state, after hynogogic state of five to ten minutes you get into sleep, which is more or less deep sleep. After about 90 minutes or so you get the first dream. When you are just about to get the dream there is a junction point between deep sleep and dream state. If you become aware of that state, that junction point, that sandhikal it is called first level of bliss. That is also the first level of turya. There are four states of consciousness and in Kashmir Shaivism there are five.
The first state is called jagrat avastha. You are normal, conscious and awake right now. You are in Jagrat avastha. Second level is when you are dreaming, swapna avastha and dream less sleep, deep sleep that is sushupti avastha – where you are totally ignorant, you have forgotten everything including your name. This is deep sleep state. If your awareness goes up and if you start dreaming and you know you are dreaming means you are aware. Otherwise during the dream state you are not aware that you are dreaming. The dream is real for you but if you do kriya, if you are initiated into kriya properly, you do kriya regularly and you do Chakrodaya meditation – watching your breath and capturing the turning point that is the greatest secret of spirituality.

If you do Chakrodaya meditation very soon you develop the awareness of the junction between the deep sleep and dreams. When the dream stops you again get into deep sleep and there is a junction. When you wake up from deep sleep state to wakeful state there is a junction. When you get into sleep from wakeful state to deep sleep state there is a junction point. If you become aware of every junction, in that junction point, in that sandhi, in that turning point, in that threshold point, in that connecting point you get bliss that is the bliss of Turya, that bliss which all of you have experienced, anybody who attended ADP this is guaranteed. During ADP your awareness goes to that extent and 100% everybody experiences. That is technically known as first level of Turya.

Turya has seven levels. Turya is just not beyond Jagrat, swapna and sushupti as it is understood normally by the sadhakas. Turya, as you go deeper has many layers and that is why your experiences differ. So this is the first level of Turya, first level of bliss. Technically in Kashmir Shaivism they call it Nijananda. Its ananda, bliss, labeled as Nijananda. It is bliss of the self. ‘Nija’ means self. It is ananda of the self. In the turya state you experience your own self and that is called Nijananda. Even that cannot be considered as Enlightenment experience. I am just trying to explain to you what exactly the meaning of the word enlightenment, self realization is because there are so many stages and at what state exactly it happens. These are the passing stages, stepping stones, no doubt you experience bliss but that bliss is of different kind and yogis get bliss of different kind, Shiva’s bliss is of different kind and there are so many different levels of bliss. You have to understand that it is an eternal journey and there are so many different types of experiences. You start recording in your personal diary your own experiences you will understand the differences.

As you progress on the path and you practice meditations of Kashmir Shaivism, you practice Ajapa Gayatri and you go deep into it; the practice which we did in ADP shibir, most of the time we were doing Ajapa Gayatri. When you do Ajapa Gayatri meditation your breathing will slow down naturally and you get more and more into sandhikal the junction points. At one point your awareness increases to such an extent that you start feeling giddy. Your body is not accustomed to handle that high voltage power of awareness. If you are a non vegetarian eater or if your eating habits are not proper or if you are not doing your kriya regularly; your pranic levels are low. The moment you get to that height of awareness which is created because of the practice of Ajapa Gayatri meditation of Kashmir Shaivism you start feeling giddy very early. In that giddiness if you maintain that awareness even that giddiness will pass away but during that giddiness phase also you are in Turya avastha. But it is higher level of Turya, a little deeper level of Turya, you are giddy but you are still enjoying the breath, you are still getting into the turning point. There is bliss. The giddiness is of the body but your being is enjoying that bliss but because of giddiness we call it as nirananda – devoid of infinite bliss. Bliss is there but because you are feeling giddy you are not able to breakthrough that phase it is called Nirananda – devoid of infinite bliss. This is second level of Turya.

All those who meditate know that at one point you feel uncomfortable in meditation and from there you come out. Most of the time that discomfort zone is decided by your cellular vibrancy. Those who do kriya yoga because of the power of yoga your cellular system is pretty good and is prepared, so you pass this second level of turya without much difficulty. But those who are not doing kriya yoga, I meet thousands of meditators world over, many meditators have described that at a particular level they feel saturated, they feel they have had enough and then they come out of it. That is normally at the level of Nirananda. Because you have not done kriya, your pranic levels are low then your physical body is not prepared for that higher level, so you turn back from there and further sadhana is not possible. That is the reason anybody who came to TAO the first thing that I do is increase their cellular frequency which is not possible by doing imagination meditations, visualizations. You can’t.

You have to have oxygenation of the body. When you oxygenate your body, your cellular frequency rises. So kriya yoga is absolutely fantastic methodology. What you achieve by 45 minutes of kapalbhati or bhastrika Pranayama, you will achieve with three minutes of kriya. That is the power of kriya yoga. That is why I insist that before you seriously go deep into spiritually prepare your body. That is a must. That is why in ashtang yoga so much of importance is given to yama, niyama and asan, pranayam. All these first four limbs of ashtang yoga – yama and niyama which is basically setting your lifestyle and creating that attitude and asan and pranayam is basically to make your body supple and increase the cellular vibrancy. Pranayam is basically to oxygenate your system. When the oxygen saturation level of the blood goes high you become capable of handling that higher awareness. If your system is not fully oxygenated your body cannot handle higher awareness and that giddiness will come very early.

There is another thing to this. If your body is not oxygenated even gyan will not come to you that easily. What I am talking now, everyone is getting differently. It all depends on your level. Suppose your oxygenation levels are low you will feel sleepy. These topics of Turya can put you into Turya avastha or into deep sleep. It will be decided by your own cellular frequency. That is why with kriya yoga the breakthrough became so rapid. Every camp produces few Buddhas, few enlightened Masters because it is a real technology. If you do kriya your cellular frequency goes up along with that you do right kind of meditations. I have to use this word right kind of meditation because in the world there are thousand different types of meditations and out of that 900 meditations are of imagination. So I have to really make it a point about doing right kind of meditation. Meditation must increase your awareness; any meditation that increases your awareness is the right kind of meditation. Any meditation that enhances your mind games is a wrong kind of meditation. All imaginations and visualizations should necessarily be avoided if you want to walk the path of enlightenment.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not against visualizations. Visualization is good for preparing your day, prioritizing your day, planning your day, it is a manifesting technology. Manifesting is good if you want to achieve your sales target, business target, it is absolutely fine, and I am not against that. But visualizations, imaginations, mental constructs, mind games are no way helpful on the path to enlightenment. Be very careful because in the New Age circles most of the people are promoting this, those types of meditations are absolutely useless as far as your walking the path of self realization is concerned. They are very useful for business growth, theirs as well as yours, more of theirs and less of yours! So be very careful my dear friends.

If you practice Chakrodaya you will start becoming aware in a real sense. The more aware you become and you go on upgrading your awareness you will naturally capture the turning points of the breath. You go on inhaling, inhaling, and inhaling, at one point your inhalation stops and the exhalation starts. That point is called as sandhikal. That is the sandhi, the joining point, the junction point, the threshold point. You must become aware of that. Then you go on exhaling and at one point exhalation is over and your inhalation starts. That is the turning point, sandhikal. You go on updating your awareness joyously and again capture the turning point. This meditation is known as Chakrodaya dhyana. We will go into greater details of each technique of Kashmir Shaivism by actually practicing it in Dwarahat Shibhir. Every meditation we will practice for longer durations so that you become absolutely thorough with the basics.

If you do so daily, regularly your awareness will go on increasing. Then from here you will go on to the next level of practice which is known as Ajapa Gayatri meditation. In Ajapa Gayatri meditation same thing happens but your breath becomes slower, you become more relaxed, you become more subtle and you go on getting into that joyously every nanosecond as you inhale, throughout. You capture the turning point with great enthusiasm fully aware. As you go on exhaling you are fully enthusiastic, refreshing, renovating your awareness and then come to the turning point and joyously capture it. There is a great joy. If you do this right kind of meditation you will be able to capture the junction point in your sleep. In the day time you don’t do this meditation then you go to sleep, only in the morning when you wake up you will realize you had slept. Only while having your tea you will understand that you missed the junction point. Only those who meditate throughout the day, only those people can capture the junction point during sleep, not otherwise. It’s not easy. This bliss business is not easy. You have to work for it.

As you go deeper, there are many levels. This is called sleep awareness. Do these practices in daytime and also while sleeping and you enter the sleep. You will start understanding the junction points in the sleep. This means that your awareness is now strengthened and the stronger awareness only can capture the junction point. That is called Turya. As you go deeper with this Ajapa Gayatri practice your awareness will become so deep that at one point of time in your sleep you start getting nightmares. It is part of the process. As you go deeper into the third level of turya you will feel as if you are not able to move your body. This happens when normally your astral body moves out. Your physical body becomes very heavy and even if you try you can’t move your limbs and you start wondering what has happened. The feeling maybe as if the ceiling has collapsed on you. You feel suffocated, you feel choked up. If your right nostril is functioning at that moment you feel that your house is on fire. You listen to some horrible sounds, you have some horrible visuals.

All your past samskaras are coming up because you have started seeing from the higher dimension. And this is a necessary phase. As your sleep awareness increases at one instance you will go through these horrible sounds and horrible forms experiences like as though the house has collapsed or the house is on the fire. All these experiences happen for sure. Those who have gone deeper into meditation these things happen.
Here you come to these horrible forms and horrible sounds but you continue. How to continue? You have to endure. The word in Sanskrit for endure is titiksha. Here comes titiksha.

Last Thursday I explained to you the basic quality of a seeker. I will just go through it rapidly. First is attitude of learning. Those who do not have attitude of learning, systematic approach to learning they are not fit to be my students. I want only those students who are willing to work and learn systematically. That is the only way, there is no other way. That is a quality to become a student. Then you have to become a disciple. There is a difference between a student and a disciple. Disciple means your viveka has to bloom like a flower. Viveka means sense of discrimination should start functioning. You must be able to differentiate between what is truth and what is untruth, what is permanent and what is temporary, that aspect you have to understand.

Second point after viveka is vairagya. Vairagya does not mean taking sanyas, running away from your home. It means detaching yourself from the fruit of the karma. The third aspect we talked was about the six wealth. The first wealth is called sama,- equipoise, balanced mind, not getting carried away, stithapragnya. Second quality is dama – controlling the senses not getting into the temptations. Temptations will be there but you are capable of holding on to your senses and not letting go and falling prey to the temptations. Yama, niyama, asan, pranayam. Pratyahar. Pratyahar aspect will do this. Pratyaahar means moving your senses back so that you don’t get lost into the temptations. Pratyahar has to happen for this. The third wealth is called titiksha.

When the going gets tuff you have to endure, this aspect comes after Nijananda and Nirananda. The third level of Turya is known as parananda. Here titiksha becomes very important. You will not be able to endure this state; you will come out, sometimes screaming and shouting, full of perspiration you may wakeup from your sleep. This phase is a difficult phase. Most seekers if they are not guided properly can return back from this stage and you forget your experimenting of getting into high awareness during sleep state. Here comes the importance of titiksha, enduring without expectation and going ahead with full enthusiasm, lot of love and gratitude. All this put together in one word is titiksha. You have to endure with lot of enthusiasm without expectation. That is what you need to pass through this.

Fourth wealth is called Uparati. Uparati comes in a technically correct way only when you maintain this high level of understanding. That is uparati according to me. There are many explanations but in Kashmir Shaivism terminology when we are talking, you have to maintain that high level of understanding. When that high level of understanding is coming, you go to sleep you can’t have the wealth of uparati. You have to learn, understand, only meditation is not enough, my dear friends, you will miss the point. With only meditation you will become ponga pandit. You will not become a Master. Dhyana and Gyan both go hand in hand. For that Gyan aspect you have to have that uparati, higher understanding and you should be able to sustain that higher understanding. That aspect is very important. That is the fourth wealth.

Fifth wealth is that of shraddha. You are now getting into the unknown world, if you don’t have shraddha, you can’t walk into the unknown. From here onwards it is unknown you don’t know what will happen and you can’t know because you are exploring the unknown. There is no way to know. The only thing with which you can walk further is shraddha. The sixth wealth is called samadhan. Whatever happens and comes to you in a given session you should be happy with that. You don’t have to compare what happened to you and what happened to others, if you have that comparison aspect, criticism aspect, judgmental aspect you will miss the point. So samadhan – whatever came to you, whatever experience happened is prabhu-prasad. You have to have that attitude and have samadhan, contented with whatever happened but that divine discontent continues so that you walk the path. Don’t become alpa sukhi that is not samadhan!

What is happening with many people in Mumbai, less in Mumbai, more out of Mumbai is that there are alpa sukhi people. Just a little glimpse they get and they are very happy and they don’t walk the path further. You have tremendous potential, you have to learn, and you have to walk further. You have to actualize your fullest potential, which is far off. Don’t become alpa sukhi. Samadhan means being happy with whatever happened now but you are willing to walk the path with more enthusiasm. That is samadhan aspect. These are called six wealth and third pillar. The fourth pillar is that of being a Mumukshatva. Not just a jigyashu. Jigyashu means curious or little inquisitive. Like, let’s see what is happening in TAO attitude. Jigyashu cannot go very far off. Little bit of inquisitiveness, little bit of curiosity will not take you far off. You have to become Mumukshu which means absolutely sincere, honest seeker, walking the path of moksha, having that divine discontent, moving further. It’s an eternal journey that is called Mumukshu. These are the four pillars, four basic qualities of seeker.

So at the level after Nirananda your titiksha is really checked. If you have not learnt the basics and you move further you have to come back. If you don’t have systematic learning approach, you take shortcuts but as you move further you will have to come back because your basics are not clear. You have not done Level I properly which means you have not understood titiksha. You will have to come back from Level IV to Level I. you can’t progress that way. It’s called Chippiyawala baba, he makes a sound with the fork which he carries, walks three step further and two steps backwards. Sometimes two steps forward and three steps backwards and you wonder whether he is moving from there or not. He keeps walking but more or less in the same region. Many spiritual seekers are like that. They go two steps further and three steps backwards, sometimes three steps further and two steps backwards. You wonder whether you are actually walking the path. More or less you remain there. That is why systematic learning approach, learning in a proper manner is very important.

So when you understand the real meaning of titiksha and you endure these horrible forms and the terrible sounds and the nightmarish experiences, your awareness will now become more powerful and you will really experience the bliss of breath and that bliss, the third level is known as Parananda, it’s the bliss of breathing. Parananda means you have gone beyond the normal early levels. You have now crossed your bhooth loka, pretaloka, pitru loka. Now your astral travel will go to much higher loka. Don’t think that this is your imagination. Your subtle bodies are actually experiencing in different dimensions and this is the place where your samskaras come into picture. All your past samskaras which also includes your fears, deep rooted fears, fear of unknown, your childhood fears all these will come up. You have to face them and as you face them they will disappear and then you will get into tremendous ecstasy. That ecstasy is called as Parananda. It’s a difficult phase and titiksha comes into picture. If you don’t know what titiksha is, it will be a very difficult phase for you. This is called third level of turya.

The fourth level of turya as you move further from here, even during the wakeful state or during the sleep state you will see as you move further that at one point of time your breath gets choked up, as if you are no more breathing. When your breath gets choked up what meditation will you do, because the breath is not there and that becomes very fearful and the ego comes back! Then what to do? This is the level where your initiation comes into picture. When you are initiated in a systematic manner there is a live transmission of mantra and something more which you may not understand when you are initiated. But any Master who initiates, knows the secret of Turya. If you are initiated in a certain manner this is the level at which the initiation will start functioning. Your breath is not there but your synchronization of the mantra with your breath remains. Even if your breath is gone your mantra remains and that mantra will save you from the further fears of the unknown. Mananat trayati iti mantraha. That is why the mantra is associated with the breath in the initiation and it will protect you at that level.

If you continue with the mantra, breath is not there, you will get into different kind of ecstasy, that ecstasy is known as Brahmananda. What is happening here? Why the choking up is happening? It is a very beautiful phase. How the ego annihilation happens you will understand with the seven levels of turya. At one particular point where the choking up happens, it’s like a death situation for you. In fact it is more than the death because your individuality gets lost and you become universal being. But when your individuality is lost it is like death, in fact more than death. At this level the breath starts whirling at lumbika sthan, it is the pit where the four holes meet behind the soft palate. There the whirling of the breath takes place and you may yawn and at that moment, you feel as if you are getting stroke. Your face can become crooked and you may experience death. In fact it is not death, it is more than death.

With the death of body ego does not die. Here the death is not of the body but is the death of the ego. If you continue with awareness, at that level of awareness your ego will die. It is as good as facing the death. What you have faced earlier is much more than death. You face your death. Sometimes actually the face becomes crooked during these moments which other person can see and you feel as if you are leaving your body. That is a real death experience. Actually you are not leaving your body but in the process of meditation this is the point where the ego feels absolutely suffocated and annihilation of ego happens and individuality is lost. You become universal being. That is why Brahmananda. Your become part of Brahmanda. Your individuality is lost and you become the universal being. This level can be labeled as enlightenment, not the prior levels. All are life transforming experiences, all are blissful experiences but this is the level where the annihilation of ego happens. This can be considered as enlightenment.
Brahmananda is the minimum level you have to come to where annihilation of ego takes place. Beyond that the whirling breath suddenly gets into the Muladhara and the full body becomes vibrant and absolutely joyous, that point is known as Mahananda – the great bliss. From here onwards the Kundalini Shakti automatically moves from the Muladhara in many different ways and it comes to third eye and you start understanding everything and it is a real experience. These are not imaginary experiences. If you do Chakrodaya dhyana, if you do the practice of Ajapa Gayatri and there are quite a few associated practices which you will learn in Dwarahat Shibir, you actually get these experiences. Almost everybody goes through similar kind of experiences. Some phases may be longer, some phases may be shorter but nevertheless you will pass through all these phases and you come to the automated process where the grace takes over, you don’t need to do anything. Up to this you have to continue with your practices. Beyond this it is the grace of existence, Master, Ishwara, life whatever. It is grace which is not in your control. These are the levels of Turya.

Initially you went with the breath and at one moment your breath stopped but you continued with the mantra. At one moment your mantra gets dropped because the mind is not there, if there is no mind where is the mantra. Mind becomes subtle and converts itself into consciousness, awareness. When the mind is gone completely definitely the ego annihilation happens. Before the mind goes you have to pass through the troubles that are of the ego. Once you continue and come to the stage where the mind is not there, breath may start because that is the need of the body, choking up is gone and you start experiencing the bliss of consciousness, that is Chidananda. That is the experience of Samadhi called Chidananda. This is the sixth level of turya. If you turn back before that it means you are not actualizing your full potential, you have to go ahead. You have to go deeper and deeper into turya and you will come to these different levels. You have to go to the level of Chidananda. From here onwards you can’t fall. You have to go the level of Sadashiva and you will not fall.

Last year more than a dozen scandals happened in India. All the TV channels and newspapers were full of scandals of all the Babas. Many people asked me this question, can an Enlightened Master do this kind of thing? No, Enlightened Master cannot do this, but then what is enlightenment? If you have crossed Chidananda level you can’t fall. But if you have just entered the turya and you are blissful, but that bliss is not the real bliss, it is not deep. From sixth level of turya that is the level according to the tattwas you are crossing Sadashiva. If you cross that, from there onwards you can’t fall back. Until then falling back danger is absolutely high and let me tell you that out of 100 people who get enlightened 95 people fall down.

You actually feel the awakening is there, the bliss is there but that bliss does not sustain over a period of time, it goes away and then you wonder what happened to you. It means you have fallen down and it actually happens and the risk is very high. That is why this preparation is necessary. You have to understand what level of turya you have gone to, from which level you can fall back, from which level you cannot fall back. The level from where you cannot fall back is called the level of Chidananda, the sixth level of turya. If you have gone up to fifth you can fall back. Your enlightenment will be lost. Understand this. This happened to many. So if you think it has happened and you don’t walk further, you can fall back. You have to cross the level of Chidananda, the bliss of consciousness. If you experience that once this knowledge will become part of your system, and the understanding will not allow you to fall down. So, all those Masters who did all that nonsense were not real Masters. They had experienced the bliss to certain levels; they had not gone beyond Chidananda level.

Anybody who has gone beyond Chidananda will not do so; there is no falling back from there. Shastras say so. Kashmir Shaivism has a very detailed description of this; you cannot fall back from that level. If you want to become a strong, genuine, real Master, not for the world but for your own growth you must look into these things and walk the path, go beyond this. There is something more than this also. Until this, whatever happens, all these levels are called Nimilan Samadhi in Kashmir Shaivism. These six levels are the part of Nimilan Samadhi. All are samadhis only. Patanjali describes Samadhi in different manner, in Kashmir Shaivism all these levels are levels of Nimilan Samadhi.

Beyond that also there is a level. In the last one what happens is you get the bliss and the breath has started now. The breath blocked, the mind stopped, annihilation of the ego happened, all that is Nimilan Samadhi. Beyond that if you are able to sustain your awareness, bliss remains, ecstasy, joy remains. In that if you open your eyes you see everything around you are joyful, the joy remains and it does not go away with open eyes. Then again you close your eyes and you experience the same joy within. This opening and closing sometimes happens with when you exhale you go out with your eyes open, when you inhale your eyes close you experience your inner bliss. You experience the inner bliss with closed eyes and you experience the outer bliss with your eyes open and it keeps happening for sometime. Inside outside there is same bliss that is called karma-mudra. Krama - alternately this happens. This state of inside outside same bliss, with closed eyes also blissful, with open eyes also blissful, this level of bliss is known as Jagadananda, now you are expanding. This is the level where you have expanded awareness because you actually exist inside and outside this is the experience which happened with many of you in the ADP program. That is the experience of Jagadananda.

Once this experience happens, it is permanently registered in your consciousness; you can’t fall down from there. That is the reason so much of motivation was given to come to this level. Once you experience Jagadananda, your consciousness registers that. It will not be easy to go down from there onwards. Major changes start happening in your life. Once this understanding comes you will not enjoy gossip, you cannot go down to the lower things, you will anyway not eat non vegetarian food, many things will just drop off from your system because this is such a powerful experience which get so deeply registered in your consciousness that the real changes will start happening in your life, it will be felt by you and seen by others. This is the real life transforming experience where the effects will be seen by others also. Now the permanent changes will come. Anything before this is impermanent. You can go back and you will forget about everything. Nothing will sustain. But with jagadananda experience, it is sustainable. You have to go to the level of Jagadananda. Karma mudra you have to pass through. This, in Kashmir Shaivism, is known as Unmilan Samadhi. This way all the seven levels of turya you have to experience.
Many people read the scriptures and they understand and they discuss. Many Masters give discourses, those are recorded, transcribed and those chapters are discussed amongst the disciples and the whole lot feels that they are walking the path of spirituality. It is not so. This can be the biggest pitfall on the path. You are not walking the path when you start understanding these things intellectually. You are walking the path only when you do these practices and you pass through these experiences. Otherwise you may be hallucinating with your concepts and the intellectual understanding may not allow you to walk the path in reality.
You are walking the path in reality only if you are passing through these experiences and that experience will give you the experiential understanding of the scriptures. Otherwise you will get into the intellectual understanding and you may miss the point completely and it will give you intellectual arrogance. So your sadhana part and your experiencing part have to go hand in hand with understanding aspect, both are supporting each other. Awareness has to increase through meditational practices with right kind of meditations and you have to have the understanding of this so that they both are helping each other for you to move and you have to come to a level where you can’t fall back. That is the way to experience seven levels of turya. We will have few minutes of meditation now so that you allow this knowledge to seep into your system. In meditation you remain aware from inside.

END of PART-1.